I've been working with Jason Lambright and Dirk de Jager on the next AoT novel and recently had them give some thinking time over to what sort of uptime tech might get quickly adapted and pushed out to the military by the mid 1950s.

I've also been thinking about consumer tech, but that's a different area.

Below is a far from comprehensive list of Dirk and Jason’s goodie bag. Overnight, Dirk sent me a some more thoughts about the whole process:

There is something about tinkering with the past and the all-encompassing theme of these books namely “What if?”. Oh, let me introduce myself first: my name is Dirk and I am one of the minions in JB’s sweatshop doing research and contributing a few words and ideas.

We have been thinking up a nice little scenario and already are on track for a great addition to the series. And we thought up on most of the toys we will be using in this book. Things like the HK 416 assault rifle, an update M60 main battle tank and the F-15 Eagle. But even three decent minds can forget something.

So, in the ye old and trusted Burger tradition we present to you The Pepsi Challenge. For this we have devised two categories:

First category:

Existing weapon, procedure of tech thingie. For this you may scowler the interwebs and the Pedia of Wiki for something cool. Couple of rules: it must be able to be build by mid 70s technology and be feasible to be used in the field and/or in daily life. And off course we haven’t used it already. We will be replying to each and every post, so you can send in another cool thing if we have already come up with one of those.

Second category:

Made up weapon, procedure of tech thingie with a degree of realism. So, no unicorn fart powered thermo nuclear tipped glidebombs or ICBM launching torpedoes. Bonus points can be gathered for things that are especially sneaky. For mentioned rules on the tech base also apply.

The prize: the two winners will get a cameo in 3.1. We can’t promise though you won’t be overrun by a speeding T-72 tank, get blown up by an incoming mortar shell or sleep with the fishes on the end of your paragraph. But if the input is good, we will do our best …

The fine print: the intellectual property will be become owned by Slim Jim Enterprises and the proceeds of these will be misused by Mr. Davidson on procuring dames and probably Columbian’s finest. But as a fan of the series you will be fine by that.

And if and when this post hits 50 replies, Jason and I will waterboard JB into publishing a new snippet of the book on the channel. So, thinking caps on chaps and chapettes and surprise us. We know you can …

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Posted March 29

Is the 70s limitation just to give room to move in any future books?

I still maintain that a full set of (at least) US patents and applications would have been contained in the ship's information store, and some of those haven't even been applied for yet. Plus all the other non patent technical disclosures. You're losing 40 years of even relatively simple technological advancement.

Dirk has opinions thus...

Posted March 29

you can find me response a little more down on this page.

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Posted March 29

3D Manufacturing
Filament (Plastics, rubbers, etc)
Sintered Laser (Metals, etc)
Improved battery technology
LiPo
NiMH
LiIon
High powered LED lighting
Low power portable computing
Internet (I cant remember in the books if it was being rolled out to public - or if it was just military
Cat pictures
Gig Economy (not a physical thing)
Augmented Reality (its probably already in the books)

Dirk swirls their brandy and claims...

Posted March 29

Cat or CAD pictures? :D

I like the Sintered laser and the batteries, I'll chalk you up for that one.

balders would have you know...

Posted March 29

cat pictures - you know the 95% of the 5% of the internet that isn't porn - everyone loves good cat pictures

I think that the low power / more efficient electronics would have a huge boost especially in terms of miniaturization, they wouldn't be able to produce a chip on a 7nm die, but they'd be able to implement a bunch of lessons learned and the time to get down to what we are producing these days would greatly reduced

Dirk has opinions thus...

Posted March 29

On the one hand we would keep our brave new world clean of these excesses, but you have a point. Let me enlighten you however what the internet would look like in our little world.

Computers are expensive, so most of those you would find in the military, government, large companies and in academia. Think 80286s from the late 80s, though there is a section in the book working with reversed engineered Raspberry Pi's in the book running on Ubuntu/Linux. So it's more a 70s/80s style of computer use. Databases, communications, bookkeeping those kind of applications.

Digital pictures are another point: sure first gen will be in spy satellites, but for taking snaps we would go for Polaroid camera's. So cat pics could happen, but more or less on a physical company whiteboard then on the internet.

Dirk swirls their brandy and claims...

Posted March 29

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Posted March 29

The 70s tech line is indeed a threshold intended to give us wiggleroom for future books and not to make the conflict between the Warsaw Pact and NATO too one sided. A more then 15 year tech gap would make for very short books ...

But you also have to factor in the tech/manufacturing base and economic constraints in our alternate 50s and for example multi year material research you have to do to make certain kinds of things. For example we are not using Chobham or Burlington armor for tanks, haven't fielded the F-35 or gone for nuclear powered aircraft carriers in 3.1. We tried to strike a balance on what we could get into the field in sufficient numbers, not going for the ultimate but for what would have been more then good enough.

True there will be things even more advanced known already, but that insight isn't lost. It's still on a shelf waiting for the industrial base to catch up to that.

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Posted March 29

They can have microwave ovens off '70s tech but you have to wait until 1985 for custom kitchen deliveray-ay-ayys.

Dirk swirls their brandy and claims...

Posted March 29

There are microwave ovens (even affordable ones) and even custom kitchens ;) courtesy of a company that runs on the IKEA principle. And that wasn't even a stretch as the first ones were sold in our time even as early as 1946.

Same would go for fridges and freezers, vacuumcleaners and washing-machines and even dishwashers. The constraints would have been more economical (can we afford them on mostly the husbands wage?) and partly cultural. The second feminist wave would have come a little more early (the pill is on the market), but most especially Western European and for example Australian households would have been more paternalistic.
As a base we took this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBB7YEbIYl8

But it's food for thought: what would a typical day for a lets say 27 year old She Jedi in our 1955 would have looked like?

Dirk asserts...

Posted March 29

jl asserts...

Posted March 29

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Posted March 29

FRED - the Fucking Ridiculous Eating Device. Featured in Australian rat packs since at least the 70s. Bit bigger than the American rat pack tin opener, with a built in rudimentary spoon. I still have a few in the kitchen drawer!

In a food related vein, tinned rats replaced with soft packaging ala current Aust and US rat packs/MREs.

If we are potentially going for newish Infantry weapons, perhaps something like the old Stoner Weapons System, where there is a basic working parts unit that can fit with different barrels, feed methods (belts or mags), grips, butts, yada yada as required, and all parts are interchangeable.

Can't think of anything else just yet....

Dirk ducks in to say...

Posted March 29

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_Ration_Eating_Device

I like it!

On weapons we went for a standardized mix of trusted ones that could have been made on the tech bases. We took a serious look at the Stoner, but dropped that. It would have been too much of a compromise. Our mix however is NATO wide so for example a French made barrel would fit a Swedish made weapon. The mix is made up from the following:

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Posted March 29

When soldiers are patrolling in the jungle, or jungle-like conditions, their radio signal will be severely hindered or destroyed by the dense foliage. But not with the Hot Spot Channel! The Hot Spot Channel will shoot a secure signal straight up through the foliage from which the patrol can communicate (for dustoff, fire support, resupply etc.). The HQ element can easily communicate with the patrol until the Hot Spot Channel is deactivated.

How does it work? Well, let us explain by saying: Hahaha, you don't want to know. No, seriously, you leave the technology up to us, let's just say we hope you already have kids.

Dirk ducks in to say...

Posted March 29

I'll chalk you down for the space blanket and the Parachute release. "Tin foil" was already in use in our time but that's an honorable mention.

And the Hotspot channel is cool, we are a little short on jungle in book 1, but something like that will find a place in future books.

Keith mutters...

Posted April 2

Too easy. Thanks, Dirk.

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Posted March 29

Can't remember if it's in the books or not but rapid turnaround DNA testing. I'm thinking the uptimers wouldn't be keen on exposure to certain infections that were running around at the time. Also genealogical testing may be handy to prevent accidentally sleeping with your great-grandmother, although I'm sure some perverts would want to use it the other way around

Dirk swirls their brandy and claims...

Posted March 29

Paul Brasch put a lot of Reichsmarks in these kinda things in the first series. It will take though a lot of computing power so it's probably only reserved at the moment to the rich and famous and academic hospitals. But the idea is cool!

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Posted March 29

Can't remember if it's in the books or not but rapid turnaround DNA testing. I'm thinking the uptimers wouldn't be keen on exposure to certain infections that were running around at the time. Also genealogical testing may be handy to prevent accidentally sleeping with your great-grandmother, although I'm sure some perverts would want to use it the other way around

jl swirls their brandy and claims...

Posted March 29

Cheap paternity tests, to be found at the local pharmacy. What a great disruptor.

John Birmingham mumbles...

Dirk puts forth...

Posted March 29

There will be research on that field. Einstein and a young Stephen Hawking will be decimating the footage with an attitude of "WTF happened?"

But there are a few things barring it. First one is money. There are a lot of things that will spring fruit for a lot less money. Eradication of polio for example and alternate energy. The space race, though with Stalin's hammer project eating up most of the means for the Soviet space program, that will be a little more balanced.

Secondly what if the Manning Pope experiment was a fluke? Can we reliably bring back the 21C's back to exactly where they came from, and what kinda distorted world will they find there? And how long will the research take? Wouldn't they not all be dead before it is feasible?

One of the most interesting things in WoC was the transplanted social contexts ot up timers, feminism, LGBTQ, & race were discussed, but not the Green movement.
Would it be possible to kick off the Green Movement without Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, without the blights of oil spills, dead rivers, introduced species. Or would we accelerate Pell Mell into a hellscape of neonicanatoids, organochlorines, and hormone disrupters?

Dirk would have you know...

Posted March 31

Excellent suggestions on the medical side of things NBlob, I will chalk you down for those.

On the environmental issues, I am writing at the moment a text that I will ask John to post here on the Burger as a separate blog post. What you are pointing out here has that kind of merit.

jl puts forth...

Posted March 31

I'd think the medical field would explode with the wealth of information brought by the Fleet.

Ask the residents of Pittsburgh circa 1944 whether they'd like a cleaner life- certainly, but they'd want work, too. There'd have to be a balance struck. With foreknowledge of long-term environmental effects real headway could be made much sooner.

Posted April 1

jl ducks in to say...

Posted April 1

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Posted April 2

I can't remember if Boxer Briefs, introduced in the 90s, were mentioned in the books (I can remember uptime suit patterns were) but I bet they would be widely distributed.
CL-84 Dynavert, a successful but unmarketable Canadian V-TOL prototype from the 70s, I imagine it beefed up in a half-measured attempt to turn it into an osprey.
Teflon coating.

jl reckons...

Posted April 2

You learn something new every day, that CL-84 was ahead of its time. Dirk, you're keeping score, bud.

Boxer shorts per se have been around for a while, but you have a point with boxer briefs. Yeah, they'd prob be a hit, far better than the old "tighty whities"

Another point for teflon coating.

Dirk puts forth...

Posted April 2

I am keeping score ;) I was composing an answer to both She Jedi and Nblob, which took me a little longer than I anticipated.

The CL-84 was new to me, tough I have studied the DO-31 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornier_Do_31 ). I'll keep both of them in mind.

To the boxers (yes good one) I would add the humble thong then as well though that kind of undergarment would create quit a stir in for example Francist Spain.

Halogen headlamps (is this 50s US just as weird with their headlights compared with the rest of Europe from the 40s-80s? Where at one point they would only permit only two types of rectangular headlights in the 70s and 80s?)

Dirk mutters...

Posted April 3

I'll chalk you down for the low end earphones. Rumor has it that on the 1956 CES - to be held at Madison Square Garden - RCA will introduce 6-track, following Phillips that will announce at the International Funk Ausstellung later in '55 their line of Running Girl portable cassette players.

Data storage on large magnetic tape is already here, as is CCTV (for military use). And we can expect advances in lighting technology.

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Posted April 4

How about metallurgy in general. It would have far reaching military and industrial impact. The steel and aluminum of the 40s can't come close to what current tech can produce. Hell, most of the whiz bang stuff people mentioned up thread aren't even possible without modern alloys and composites.

Dirk mutters...

Posted April 4

Very true. For this subject we have laid the bar at the late 60s. HY80 steel, Stainless steel and small scale titanium will be in use. As previously mentioned Chobham and Burlington are as of yet not out of the lab.

Aluminum is at a comparable level with scandium/aluminum alloys being in late research.